Best of 2009 list excludes women writers

Publishers Weekly, that venerable (and some say dated) institution, has compiled its best books of 2009 list, and the top ten authors are all men. Interesting, given that the Booker and the Pulitzer (fiction) prizes both went to women this year. 

The list has resulted in predictably divided responses, with one camp arguing that perhaps no women-authored books were worthy of inclusion this year (justice is blind!), and the other asserting that this lineup is but the latest manifestation of the (often unconscious) gender bias in the literary world (you suck, PW).

Register your approval/howl of outrage at the WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) website.  You can also add your picks to their list of favorite books by women in 2009.   

Here’s the PW list in full: 

PW Top 10

Cheever: A Life

Blake Bailey (Knopf)

Bailey, who was given access to the journals Cheever kept throughout his life, shines a new light on Cheever’s literary output, making possible a fresh reappraisal of his achievement. In addition, Bailey offers up juicy, appalling, hilarious and moving anecdotes with verve, sensitivity and perfect timing.

Await Your Reply

Dan Chaon (Ballantine)

Chaon was a National Book Award finalist for Among the Missing, and this gripping account of colliding fates, the shifty nature of identity in today’s wired world and the limits of family is easily as good, if not better. It’s a literary page-turner, a cunningly plotted and utterly unputdownable novel.

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon

Neil Sheehan (Random House)

The development of the ICBM as a key part of the cold war arsenal wasn’t inevitable. In a splendidly reported and narrated account, Sheehan credits Air Force Gen. Bernard Schriever with the foresight and shrewdness to triumph over powerful Pentagon opponents and develop the crucial and terrifying weapon.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton)

An NBA finalist (we found him first), Mueenuddin delivers Pakistan through the stories of its people: yearning, struggling, plotting, in a heartbreaking story collection that is specific and universal all at the same time.

Big Machine

Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)

LaValle’s brilliant second novel is unlike anything else out there: Ricky Rice, an ex-junkie African-American bus station porter, gets sucked into the bizarre machinations of a rural Vermont cult dedicated to studying “The Voice.” The narrator is blisteringly funny in chronicling his bizarre quest, providing both a blazing story and an astute commentary on race.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

Richard Holmes (Pantheon)

In a thrilling narrative of scientific discovery and the spirit of an age, Holmes illustrates how the great scientists of Britain’s romantic era gripped the imaginations of their contemporaries and forever changed our understanding of the universe and our place within it.

Stitches

David Small (Norton)

A graphic novel to bring us all back to comics, Small’s account of his terrifying childhood is amazing. The drawings of his parents and the small suffering boy who doesn’t quite understand until much, much later will pull you along panel by panel and tear your heart out.

Shop Class as Soulcraft

Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin Press)

Philosopher and motorcycle mechanic Crawford makes a brilliant case for the intellectual satisfactions of working with one’s hands—and why white-collar work is the assembly line of the new millennium. Crawford is catholic in his tastes (references range from Aristophanes to Dilbert), unsentimental and irresistible as he extols the virtues of “knowing how to do one thing really well.”

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

Geoff Dyer (Pantheon)

Dyer creates an aging hipster grinding it out as a freelance journalist who pursues the girl instead of the story: covering the Biennale. Then, depending on your point of view, he either loses or finds himself when he’s sent to Varanasi. Dyer has many books to recommend him, but all you need is angst-ridden Jeff: funny, frank and utterly charming, and if you haven’t walked in his shoes, you’ll wish you had.

Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

David Grann (Doubleday)

In this classic adventure tale, New Yorker writer Grann—who gets winded climbing the stairs of his New York City walkup—follows in the footsteps of early–20th-century Amazon jungle explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared along with his son on a 1925 expedition. Grann expertly and energetically weaves the story of Fawcett’s explorations with that of his own.

And for further reading, here’s a link to a NYT article about gender bias in the (American) theater world.

The expat’s new shoes: Bata Hawaii chappals

Jil Wheeler’s Letter from Mumbai isn’t offensive  this time around,  just poorly informed. In “The Expat’s New Clothes”, she writes:

If there is one overarching, overwhelming “plus” to living in Mumbai, it is the ability to wear sandals at any time, to any event, no exceptions. At some point in the West, it became cool to hate your feet—to be icked out by toe hair and to insist on wearing socks for sex. We’ve made sandals on men something of a running a joke [sic], and women are warned about the dangers of too much toe cleavage in the workplace.

In India, however, the foot is just fine. Sandals, or chappals, are not only de facto footgear, they’re intimately tied up with national identity. When Gandhi’s pair went up for auction a few months ago, the controversy wasn’t over selling his personal items, it was over selling his sandals. Gandhi made them himself—no musty British footgear for him—and when they sold for over a million dollars, they went to an Indian entrepreneur. India equals sandals, at least in a few minds.

Make that a few half-baked minds. Could Indians prefer sandals to shoes because the climate is so hot and humid?  And maybe lace up boots aren’t popular because the country’s cultural norms require the frequent removal of footwear? And perhaps  sandals are worn anytime, anywhere, because many Indians don’t own multiple pairs of shoes? No, Indians like sandals because we have these quaint ways.  

The rest of Wheeler’s piece isn’t half-bad–there’s a nice bit about learning to tie a sari by watching YouTube–but dear Morning News: please won’t you reconsider Wheeler’s assignment? Or at least halve her per diem till she decides to research her subject before hitting send? 

I’d argue that the representative national footwear of India (if there is such a  thing) is the flip-flop. Specifically, the rubber Bata Hawaii chappal with blue straps and a white inner sole which, over time, wears away to reveal the blue impressions of  big toe and heel.  When the straps give up the fight, you can mend the piece at the cobbler’s for a  nominal sum. (I tried but failed to work in a reference to Rubber Soul here.)

 

(Picture from www.bata.in. The pair will set you back by 79 rupees, less than 2USD.)

In The Namesake, when Gogol and his sister visit India, upon reaching the family house, they “have their feet traced onto pieces of paper, and a servant is sent to Bata to bring back rubber slippers for them to wear indoors.” I rest my case.

These slippers were meant to be worn indoors, but you saw them everywhere.  When I was a student in India, I had them on every single day, as did everyone; we swapped them for shoes only for job interviews. I wore them like moccasins over my sock-clad feet in the cold Ahmedabad winters.  During weighty lectures, we’d surreptiously slide someone’s pair along the room, and it was lovely to watch the victim hunt for the missing slipper at the end of class, unless you were the victim, in which case the whole thing became a malicious act by a bum-faced misogynist. 

As a child, I always though Bata was an Indian brand name, like Tata.  No, Tomas Bata was Czech, and it’s a Canadian company; the Bata Shoe Museum is near where I now live. Who’d have thought?

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Hilary Mantel on feminism

Why do intelligent women who believe in the equality of the sexes, who would be enraged  at the notion that they are somehow less than men, hesitate to term themselves feminists?   Hilary Mantel talks about this phenomenon in this Guardian interview:

[Mantel]  is appalled by those who have forgotten what her generation, and her mother’s generation, encountered. “very annoyingly, you get women nowadays who are educated and have got on in their professions, saying, ‘Oh, but I’m not a feminist.’” Anger suffuses her face, an intensity almost indecent. “The only reason they can say that is that they’re standing on the shoulders of their mothers, who fought these battles, I think for a woman to say ‘I’m not a feminist’ is [like] a lamb joining the slaughterer’s guild. It’s just empty-headed and stupid.”

Perhaps they’re trying to distance themselves from a particular caricature of feminism?

“Yeah. Well, they need to inform themselves. Women now take a great deal for granted…”

I’m totally rooting for Mantel to win this year’s Booker.

Update: And she did!!
See a video of her win here

And here’s an oldish review of Mantel’s wonderful, eerie, and altogether masterly Beyond Black

The foothills of Mount TBR

Here’s some of the fiction I plan to read over the next couple of months.

The shelf happens to summarize my literary interests pretty handily. There’s South Asian/post-colonial writing–Sarif, Malladi, Danticat , Thapa, Ali  etc.  Lots of Canadians–Friedman, Gowdy, Manguel and more.  Some American heavy-hitters, including Ford and Russo. Many women writers.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has been on my list for over a decade.  

My reviewing assignments aren’t included in this collection. Also not included: my TBR non-fiction, crime, fantasy, sci-fi, YA and kid-lit books.

Yes, I have a reading disorder, but I’m in the fine company of fellow mountaineers Rose and Batty.

Weekend roundup of literary tragedies.

The  past literary week brought nothing but misery. First: the wonderful and amazing site Readerville has ceased its existence. I am indebted to Readerville for many reasons, but most for introducing me to E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series. I’m going to write an ode to the books one of these days, but for now: Benson is to P. G. Wodehouse as wine is to Welch’s.  The raw material is the same–upper-class Britons in the 1920s and 1930s–but Benson is more subtle, more acerbic, and far more addictive. If you are an oxygen breather who speaks English, you ought not miss this series.

I was a lurker on the Readerville site for the most part, and it was a privilege to eavesdrop on a group of intelligent, articulate people all incorrigibly obsessed with books.  The site’s demise has halved my daily surfing time. 

I also finished  the new Sookie Stackhouse novel “Dead and Gone“  this weekend. The 9th book of Charlaine Harris’s vampire-meets-bonkable blonde series marks the point where I’ve officially quit the habit. Dead and Gone is not much more than a pile-up of corpses and perfunctory sex, and the prose has as much life as do Sookie’s vampire suitors. Any faith I might have had in Amazon.com’s ratings has been destroyed by the four stars readers awarded this pap.   

 

And finally, David Eddings, author of the The Belgariad and The Malloreon series, died last week. In spite of the predictable plot, the spineless female non-sorceress characters, and the not-so-hidden similarities with The Lord of Rings, these  books are beloved to me, and as much a part of my teenage years as Clearasil and Air Supply.

David Eddings. Picture Copyright: Ballantine Books

Now that Eddings has reached the great big Faldor’s Farm in the sky, I am going to re-read all ten books in memorium of a writer who never failed to entertain his readers. 

Can we please move past the accent, idioms and the head shake?

India newbie Jil Wheeler dives joyfully into stereotypes about the country in the article  It’s like this, only  in The Morning News. The mention of tandoori chicken and Kingfisher beer in the opening sentence set off my cliche alert.    

It’s the end of a long night eating tandoori chicken and drinking Kingfisher beer  in Mumbai with visiting friends. Traffic has slowed to a few cars here and there, and we flag down a cab. The stereo is pounding Bollywood disco, but the driver turns down the volume to ask where to. “Turner Road,” I reply, or, more accurately rendered, ““Tournah Rrrr-ooad” with several up-and-down vocal inflections.

On Indian English:

The English spoken in Mumbai is, to my ears, nothing short of fantastic. It is a loopy, sing-song spaghetti mess with odd accents, quick flicks of the tongue, and excessive nasalization. Veg becomes wedge, Jil becomes gel, and films, flims.
The words themselves are enamoring. Indian English is stuck in a time warp—the problem is no one can figure out exactly which decade, or what century. A casual business email from a local colleague concludes, “The details will be intimated presently. Please do the needful. Most respectfully yours.” Wikipedia claims overly formal language is a holdover from the East India Company, but I think that’s a bit generous, even though certainly the language has more in common with letters my grandfather wrote than texts I send my friends. If “updation,” “prepone,” and “felicitate” aren’t already in your office vocabulary, they really should be.

On Indian mannerisms:

Oh yes, the Indian head bobble. Did I forget the bobble? Telling a cab driver “Tournah Rrrr-ooad” will get you nowhere unless you also insert the appropriate head waggle and/or bobble. The head bobble speaks volumes, but that is a Bombay discussion for another day.

 

It wasn’t a WTF moment, but the article left me somewhat disturbed. I don’t, for a nanosecond, think Jil Wheeler is channeling Katherine Mayo. But I do wish a journalist paid to visit India to record her impressions would move beyond the obvious.  The subject matter is new and comment-worthy to Wheeler, but (if I might presume to speak on behalf of a country) most Indians feel this kind of writing has been done to death over the past decades, if not centuries. We didn’t like it then, and we don’t like it now; please move on, Wheeler. 

Something else I’m grappling with: Wheeler’s piece seems to presuppose the existence of an absolute standard of correctness for accent and speech against which other patterns fall short. But such an ”absolute standard” is, in reality, a construct of the writer’s particular circumstances. In other words, the writer finds the subject funny mostly because it is unfamiliar. Surely the mere fact of being an outsider ought not privilege the writer to such an extent?  In sum: I wish my beloved Morning News had an old India hand vet Wheeler’s writing before featuring it on their front page.

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“Google buns”: The first ever use of the word Google?

No,  ”Google Buns”  isn’t the long-awaited follow-up to the justly famous “Studmuffins of Science” calendar. (By the way, Dr. September bore the caption “Buns. Biceps. Bunsen Burners.”)

Like most, I’ve always believed the word Google originated with the mis-spelling of Googol by the company’s founders.  Googol refers to the number represented by the digit one followed by a hundred zeros. I know this because I once read a Richie Rich comic  where Richie identifies the enemy, who goes by the code name Googol, as their associate who’d once been followed during war time by a hundred Japanese planes; these planes were called Zeros. Of course I recall all this perfectly but always forget my ATM pin.

 

(This picture is from http://www.progressiveruin.com/2007_09_30_archive.html)

 

I finally arrive at the meat of this post: the British author Enid Blyton seems to have coined the word Google waaaaaay back.  I recently (re)read “The Magic Faraway Tree“  (first published in 1943) and came across this passage:

“Come on,” said Moon-Face. “Come and eat a Google Bun and see what you think of it.”

Soon they were all sitting on the broad branches outside Moon-Face’s house, eating Pop Biscuits and Google Buns. The buns were most peculiar. They each had a very large currant in the middle, and this was filled with sherbet. So when you got to the currant and bit it the sherbet frothed out and filled your mouth with fine bubbles that tasted delicious. The children got a real surprise when they bit their currants, and Moon-Face almost fell off the branch with laughing.

 

Yes, those internet bubbles sure were delicious.

I don’t know if anyone else has discovered the Blyton and Brin connection, but for now–Einstein has nothing on me.

(The title of this post has been updated.)

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